One of Hawaii's iconic plants is again at risk

Climate Change Threatens Spectacular Hawaiian Plant - One of Hawaii's iconic plants is again at risk.

The striking and rare Haleakala silversword, found only on the high volcanic slopes of Maui, is on the decline, scientists report today (Jan. 15) in the journal Global Change Biology.

First, the plant was nearly killed off by cows and collectors starting in the 1880s, then conservationists made it a success story after the 1930s. Now climate change is bringing about a new collapse.

A Haleakal? silversword in bloom, with Haleakal? crater in the background on the island of Maui.

The culprit is shifting weather patterns, which have made the plant's environment too dry and warm for new seedlings to survive. Older plants are dying, too, said study co-author Paul Krushelnycky, a biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Plummeting numbers

The numbers tell the tale: From a low of 4,000 in the 1920s to a high of 61,000 in 1991, the plant population is now dropping. A sample census counted 28,492 in 2010 — but not all of them were alive. "It wasn't obvious at first, because when they die they remain in place for many years," Krushelnycky told OurAmazingPlanet.

The 2010 survey atop Haleakala volcano on the island of Maui revealed less than half of plants (47 percent) at lower elevations around 7,100 feet (2,185 meters) were alive, indicating a substantial decline since the 1990s.

Baby plants are also struggling to grow in the drier conditions. Even with population booms during wet years, the seedlings die within two to three years, the study found.

"If these climate trends continue, it doesn't look good for this subspecies," Krushelnycky said.

Lack of rain

The Haleakala silversword is iconic in Hawaii, which has more endangered species than any other state. With a ball-shaped base and hairy, silvery leaves, the plants are one of 30 species in the silversword alliance. The alliance evolved from a small, daisy-like plant called the tarweed that arrived in Hawaii from California about 5 million years ago, Krushelnycky said. "The silversword is one of the more extreme forms, but it can grow next to one of its relatives, like a green-leafed shrub, and actually hybridize," he said.

Living for 40 to 50 years on thin, poorly developed volcanic soil in high winds and temperatures that regularly drop below freezing, the silversword is literally a textbook example of biological adaptation.

The Haleakala silversword flowers only once, usually in summer, sending a spike up to 6 feet (2 meters) tall into the sky with as many as 600 blooms. Then the plant dies.

A combination of climate changes is stressing the silverswords, the researchers said. Local temperatures are warming, but the biggest factor affecting the plant's growth rate is a dropoff in annual rainfall, Krushelnycky said.

Rainfall in Hawaii is driven by trade wind patterns, and there are fewer days with moisture-laden winds than 40 years ago. Silverswords also get moisture from breaks in the island's inversion layer, which traps moist air below its cooler, drier air. "We're getting fewer interruptions of that inversion layer, and fewer moisture events are getting into their habitat," Krushelnycky said. ( LiveScience.com )

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Bleak Prospects for Avoiding Dangerous Global Warming

Bleak Prospects for Avoiding Dangerous Global Warming - The bad news just got worse: A new study finds that reining in greenhouse gas emissions in time to avert serious changes to Earth's climate will be at best extremely difficult. Current goals for reducing emissions fall far short of what would be needed to keep warming below dangerous levels, the study suggests. To succeed, we would most likely have to reverse the rise in emissions immediately and follow through with steep reductions through the century. Starting later would be far more expensive and require unproven technology.

Published online today in Nature Climate Change, the new study merges model estimates of how much greenhouse gas society might put into the atmosphere by the end of the century with calculations of how climate might respond to those human emissions. Climate scientist Joeri Rogelj of ETH Zurich and his colleagues combed the published literature for model simulations that keep global warming below 2°C at the lowest cost. They found 193 examples. Modelers running such optimal-cost simulations tried to include every factor that might influence the amount of greenhouse gases society will produce -- including the rate of technological progress in burning fuels efficiently, the amount of fossil fuels available, and the development of renewable fuels. The researchers then fed the full range of emissions from the scenarios into a simple climate model to estimate the odds of avoiding a dangerous warming.

Picturesque and essential. Renewable energy sources and lots of them will be essential in the coming decades if dangerous global warming is to be avoided.

The results suggest challenging times ahead for decision makers hoping to curb the greenhouse. Strategies that are both plausible and likely to succeed call for emissions to peak this decade and start dropping right away. They should be well into decline by 2020 and far less than half of current emissions by 2050. Only three of the 193 scenarios examined would be very likely to keep the warming below the danger level, and all of those require heavy use of energy systems that actually remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. That would require, for example, both creating biofuels and storing the carbon dioxide from their combustion in the ground.

"The alarming thing is very few scenarios give the kind of future we want," says climate scientist Neil Edwards of The Open University in Milton Keynes, U.K. Both he and Rogelj emphasize the uncertainties inherent in the modeling, especially on the social and technological side, but the message seems clear to Edwards: "What we need is at the cutting edge. We need to be as innovative as we can be in every way." And even then, success is far from guaranteed. ( sciencemag.org )

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Independent Study Confirms That Global Warming Exists

Independent Study Confirms That Global Warming Exists - The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group was established to provide a robust, open measurement of surface temperatures, in a manner that addresses previous criticisms that temperature trends had been “cherry picked” or that “urban heat islands” provided a false picture of how fast temperatures on the Earth’s surface were rising. The Group is led by Dr. Robert Muller, a physicist who in the past had been notably critical of climate science methodology. The group is funded by a number of different sources, including Bill Gates’ Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

BEST has now released their data, and determined that their findings are well within the range of previous research. BEST’s findings indicate that in the past 50 years, the average land surface temperature of the Earth has increased about 0.911 degrees Celsius. Moreover, BEST concluded that past research by NOAA, NASA, and other groups were accurate in their estimates of warming.

(Credit: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature)

This finding, conducted by a noted climate research skeptic and funded by a variety of non-partisan sources, should hopefully end the debate over whether the Earth is warming. All the data points to the same conclusion. It is. I’ve no doubt that this will lead to another set of debates over the extent to which the cause is the result of CO2 and methane emissions, but I’m hopeful they will be much shorter. That CO2 and methane, when introduced to a mixture of gasses, allow for more heat to be trapped is indisputable – you can conduct an experiment on it yourself in your garage for a couple hundred bucks. While climate is certainly an extraordinarily complicated mechanism, the facts keep pointing back to this simple fact of chemistry. Increased CO2 and methane may not be the sole cause of climate change, but it’s definitely a cause and almost certainly a major one.

Now, what next? My Forbes colleague Tim Worstall argues that this is a serious situation, but one in which the human race can make “marginal changes and still survive and thrive.” I agree with him on this – as long as we act quickly. The technology is moving at a rapid pace, and the industries are catching up. Just take solar power, for example – it’s currently one of the fastest growing industries in the United States with total growth of 6.8% from 2010 – 2011. Over 100,000 people are employed in the solar industry domestically, and solar companies plan on hiring about 24,000 people in the coming year. That’s an amazing success story.

We can keep those successes going, and other alternative energy success stories like it, by making some common sense changes to current policies. It doesn’t require a drastic overhaul of the whole system, as long as we start taking the problem seriously now. ( forbes.com )

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Is global warming shrinking sea creatures?

Is global warming shrinking sea creatures? - Researchers discover a link between warmer oceans and smaller animals — suggesting that climate change could fill the waters with shrimpy creatures

Scientists have long observed that cold-blooded marine animals grow up to be slightly smaller adults when the water they live in is unusually warm. But the reason for this phenomenon, known as the "temperature-size rule," has long eluded scientists — until a recent study offered new insights. A concise guide to the findings:

How was this study conducted?

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, studied marine planktonic copepods — the ocean's primary form of plankton and a source of food for many marine animals. Using more than 40 years of existing data, the team measured two things: The animals' growth rates ("how fast mass is accumulated") and development rates ("how fast the animal passes through life stages").


What did they find?

Warmer water temperatures cause a "decoupling" of growth and development rates in the tiny shrimp-like creatures. Researcher Andrew Hirst explains: In warm water, "a species grows faster but matures even faster still, resulting in them achieving a smaller adult size."


Why should we care about these tiny plankton?

These creatures matter plenty, at least to the oceans' ecosystem. According to Tim Wall of Discover, "Since copepods are food for marine animals, from fish to whales, what happens developmentally to the shrimp-y crustaceans could affect the entire ocean's food web." Smaller plankton means less food to go around at the base of the ocean's food chain.


And what does this have to do with global warming?

Global warming is causing our planet's oceans to get a little hotter every year. And because this "temperature-size rule" affects all cold-blooded marine animals, "as the planet heats up, many animals' sizes may go down," Wall says. ( TheWeek )

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Scientists warming up to African rodent

Scientists warming up to African rodent. Naked mole rats don't get cancer. They shrug off brushes with acid and age so well, some are older than the college-aged researchers handling them.

"They really are from Mars, I think," said Thomas Park, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Actually, they're from the horn of Africa. But naked mole rats are becoming more popular in research laboratories, where the seemingly invulnerable rodents have surprised scientists with their ability to live up to 30 years and their potential to offer insights into human health. They're being used to study everything from aging to cancer to strokes.

AP – In this Oct. 21, 2009 photo, a pregnant naked mole rat is shown at the Barshop Institute at the UT Health …

About 1,500 naked mole rats live in clear tanks connected by long tubes at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, where researcher Rochelle Buffenstein nurtures the largest colony in the U.S. At least a half-dozen other universities also have colonies.

Nearly blind and hairless, the rodents resemble wrinkled spring rolls with tiny legs and buck teeth. They normally live in underground tunnels with a social structure comparable to bees. Buffenstein is studying their longevity.

Whereas laboratory mice live an average two years, naked mole rats can live up 30 years with little creaking in old age. Buffenstein said their bone quality doesn't start to diminish until they're about 24 years old.

They look fragile — several can fit into a palm, and it's possible to see beneath their pinkish skin — but naked mole rats are like tough, tube-shaped stuntmen.

Squirting lemon juice on a cut would sting anyone, but Park said naked mole rats don't feel pain because they lack a neurotransmitter known as substance P. The discovery has opened up ideas for pain research.

Park and researcher John Larson report in next month's journal NeuroReport that the brains of adult naked mole rats can withstand oxygen depravation for a half-hour or more. That knowledge could eventually help in stroke research, Park said.

Cancer? Buffenstein said the disease has never been found in the rodent.

A study published in October found their resistance may come from a gene called p16 that prevents cells from crowding together. Cancer occurs when cells grow uncontrollably.

Vera Gorbunova, an associate professor of biology at the University of Rochester who published the findings, said she hopes to have her own colony of mole rats to study by next summer.

"We shouldn't just be looking where it's easy to look," Gorbunova said. "We should be looking in species where we can find something ... instead of studying mice, which live relatively short lives."

As recently as the 1990s, Buffenstein said only she and one other group were really studying naked mole rats. Now she expects them to be common in laboratories by 2020.

"It takes time for people to realize that an animal has got a lot going for it," Buffenstein said. ( Associated Press )

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